Adults Altered Pasadena School’s Tests, State Says

The state Department of Education has determined that adults apparently altered students’ standardized test results in two classes at a Pasadena elementary school to improve the scores, district officials said Thursday.

An analysis of test answers at Willard Elementary School showed an unusually high number of erasures on items where answers had been changed from wrong to right, school officials said.

Interim Supt. Edgar Seal said the Pasadena Unified School District, after conducting its own review, will not contest the findings that irregularities occurred last spring with tests from two third-grade classes.

“Our teachers didn’t admit it, but the irregularities showed it was something we can’t contest,” Seal said.

The state uses the Stanford 9, a multiple-choice test, to calculate Academic Performance Index scores. The API evaluates schools on how well students do on the Stanford 9 from year to year.

Schools that post significant gains are eligible for financial rewards, including bonuses to teachers in high-achieving classes.

The state Department of Education’s findings will mean that Willard, with its 780 students, is not eligible for those incentives, even though the problem was limited to two classrooms, Seal said. The school will not get those incentives next year either, because it will have no base with which to compare any improvement.

“It does hurt our pride,” said Willard Principal Kathy Onoye, who investigated the allegations. “We believe we’re a very good school. This is a real hard blow.”

Pasadena school officials say that the Willard scores have not yet been formally invalidated by the state but that such action is only a matter of time, and they wanted to reveal the problem now.

The California Department of Education has invalidated scores at 26 schools and is still investigating about 30 others for testing irregularities, according to Pat McCabe, an administrator in the office of policy and evaluation.

McCabe said that in each case, a district has been determined to have had “adult testing irregularities,” either erasures that showed a particularly high number of items being changed to the correct answer, or inappropriate test preparations by teachers.

In some cases, districts reported inappropriate actions to the department, he said.

Scores for Glendale Unified’s Abraham Lincoln Elementary School were invalidated after a district investigation found that a third-grade teacher might have told students to change wrong answers to right.

In Pasadena, Seal said both teachers who administered the exams denied encouraging or participating in altering of the results. Teachers overseeing tests across the state are required to sign an affidavit regarding test procedures.

Seal said the district is exploring possible disciplinary action. One teacher continues to teach at Willard; the other left the district late last year.

The state challenged the results at Willard after an analysis by the testing company, Harcourt Brace, showed that the number of changed answers far exceeded the statewide average and that those changes were overwhelmingly from wrong to right.

“In the neighborhood of 90% went from wrong to right,” said William Bibbiani, Pasadena Unified director of testing. He said the district was informed of the problem in September.

The district conducted its own review and its analysis gave credence to the state findings, he said. School officials said they do not believe that the principal or her administrators played any part in the irregularities.

However, district officials say the parties involved were clearly adults.

“I don’t attribute it to the third-grade kids,” Bibbiani said.

Bibbiani said that the tests were administered over eight days and that workbooks containing the answers were kept in locked cabinets in each classroom. However, he said, any adult could have gained access to the workbooks.

Excluding the two third-grade classes, Willard’s results exceeded state projections, with the campus posting double-digit gains on the exams in reading and math, according to Bibbiani.

Staff members at Willard were informed Wednesday of the test irregularities in a meeting with the superintendent.

Principal Onoye said that despite the news, morale remains high on the campus. “We have people who are very supportive of each other,” she said.

Pasadena school officials said they will tighten proctoring of the exams and handling of materials.